Shadows in Death (In Death #51) - J.D. Robb Page 0,102
underground.”
Steady as the steel of the door, he worked on the locks. “From this location, and considering its purpose? This likely leads to the docks, and with splits along the way that come up elsewhere. A warehouse, another building, a transpo station.”
She pulled up her comm to organize the manhunt.
Whitney jogged down the steps as Roarke disengaged the locks. He opened the door to a tunnel, pargeted and dry, and large enough to accommodate a compact truck. She heard the echo, distant, already distant, of an engine.
“He had his vehicle in there, or a vehicle. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I want a team of four uniforms to follow it, see where it goes. If it splits, two teams of three. In constant communication.
“We’re going to shut this place down.” She stared at Abernathy. “We’re going to shut the bitch down who gave him this hole to hide in. You have your people pick her the fuck up. She’s an accessory to murder. She’s harbored a fugitive. You pick her the fuck up.”
She yanked out her comm. “I need to shut down the bridges, the tunnels. He knows he has to get out, find another hole, bide his time.”
“I’ll handle that,” Whitney told her. “The mayor’s going to have some objections. I’ll handle it.”
“Yes, sir. He’ll have had a go-bag ready, cash, ID. Passport,” she considered. “This place would have elevators, but he didn’t use them. Grabbing what he needed to take on the way down. He can pilot. Closest transpo station with global shuttles?”
“Southside. Near the docks,” Roarke told her.
“Let’s go.”
“We’re in this takedown, Dallas,” Jenkinson told her.
“Then get in the van. Officer Carmichael.”
“We’ll secure the scene, Lieutenant, and begin the search.”
“Affirmative. You find anything, I know about it.”
When she got out to the vans, all of her detectives, the EDD team, and Whitney stood by them.
“Every-damn-body?”
“We’re in this until he’s down,” Baxter told her.
“Southside Transpo. Move. Peabody, alert security at the center they have a fugitive heading their way. How fast does this thing move, Feeney?”
“She ain’t built for speed, but I can coax some out of her.”
So saying, he peeled out from the curb.
“He has to find a way in,” Roarke told her. “He’d want to try at least to avoid the cams as much as possible. There’s no overseas flights at this time of the morning, not commercial, so that would mean he’d need to wait for at least another hour. He’d try for their private area, as that runs twenty-four/seven.”
“Private shuttle depot, Feeney.”
“He’d need to bribe someone, and quickly, to get up,” Roarke continued. “Or steal one. Or simply kill his way onto one.”
“He’s not that far ahead of us. If he gets one, they can track it.”
“Off and on, but there are ways around that. He’d have to fly low. He won’t be after filing a flight plan.”
“Where would he go?”
“Ireland’s his root, and where his mother is. But it would be brainless.”
“Abernathy?”
“I’m already contacting my superior,” he told her. “We’ll have people at the Dublin centers. But I agree, he’d have to anticipate that. The problem—” He grabbed on where he could when Feeney swerved around a turn. “The problem is he could go anywhere if he hijacks a long-range shuttle.”
“Then we better stop him here.” Yanking out her comm, she began blasting out orders for patrols.
They knew what he looked like, knew his vehicle. All they had to do was find him and box him in.
“He’s a master at evasion, Lieutenant,” Abernathy said as he held on, worked his ’link. “I know you may feel we’ve bollocksed this for years, but the fact is, he excels at his work.”
“He’s going to be out of a job real soon.”
“He’s already scoped this out,” Roarke added. “Routes to the closest private terminal, ways in, best access to a shuttle. In his place, I’d have taken an hour or two, under the guise I was in the market to purchase a shuttle, for myself or my company.”
“Get a tour, get the layout, shit. Terminal security’s on alert. He couldn’t anticipate we’d be right on his ass.”
With sirens screaming, they barreled through the main terminal access, into the private. Eve was out of the doors before Feeney pulled to a complete stop.
As she ran toward the terminal entrance, security ran out.
“Handler, security. We’re locked down tight. Cams are sweeping. You’re the first vehicle to come through.”
“How many private shuttles, copters, jumpers currently housed in this facility?”
“Fourteen shuttles, short- and long-range, three copters, about a dozen jumpers.”